On October 14, DGA members gathered at Guild headquarters in New York for a special seminar about the job of the Location Manager. Presented by the Eastern AD/UPM Council’s Location Manager Committee, Knowing Your Contract was an informative afternoon designed to familiarize the members of this category with aspects of the DGA agreements and other items vital for their work.
The event began with a discussion about the DGA Basic Agreement. Eastern AD/UPM Council Chair Lyn Pinezich, Location Manager Committee Co-Chair Michael Kriaris and DGA Assistant Executive Director Rachel Paster covered specific aspects of how this contract applies to Location Managers. Then DGA Senior Field Rep Bart Daudelin gave an overview of the Qualifications List and explained why it matters, how to get on it and more. Kriaris and Daudelin next covered the accurate tracking and documenting of workdays on call sheets, production reports, paystubs and deal memos.
The final presentation of the day covered the new Teamsters Local 817 Agreements. Former Council Chair and current Council Alternate Thomas J. Whelan and Paster explained how these agreements affect Location Managers, the intricacies of managing a unionized department, the rates and rules for Local 817 and more.
The seminar concluded with an open forum where the speakers took questions from the audience.
About the Council & the Committee:
The Eastern AD/UPM Council is the elected body that represents the Assistant Director and Unit Production Manager members of the Guild who reside and/or work in film, television, commercials and new media the East and Midwest regions. The Council is chaired by UPM Lyn Pinezich.
The Location Manager Committee is co-chaired by Joe Guest and Michael Kriaris. The Committee members are: Michael Anthony, Gretchen Brown, Ellen A. Catsikeas, David Chambers, Al Cohn, Eddy Collyns, Monty Diamond, Guy Efrat, Jason Farrar, Michael Fucci, Sam Hutchins, James Lee, Suk Yi Mar, Michael Nickodem, Lauri Pitkus, Lynn Powers, Demian Resnick and Pat Sones.